The World Wide Web (also referred to as the web) has become a commonly used tool for people looking to locate information about a business or organization. As a result, businesses and organizations have been developing web sites that can be located and viewed by web users. These web sites typically are used as marketing tools to explain the benefits of an organization's services and/or products. Web sites that are professional in appearance, well-designed and easy to navigate can be very effective marketing tools.
There are web page design and development software applications that provide the capabilities necessary to create a web page in the HyperText Markup Language (HTML) format that can be uploaded to Internet-connected web servers and be presented to Internet-connected client computers that are able to display web pages. Some examples of these products include Microsoft FrontPage, Macromedia Dreamweaver, Adobe Go live! and NetObjects Fusion.
These software tools for web page design and development make it possible for a user to create web pages without having to understand some of the underlying HTML technologies.
However, presently known web design tools typically require that either all of the appearance settings be manipulated independently or provide an ad hoc approach that groups some settings while requiring others be managed individually. In either case, presently known web design tools typically require that their users have some familiarity with web page technologies in order to create a quality web site.
The currently available software tools do not provide a way to easily configure the many settings that affect the appearance of a web page. As a result, web pages that are created by people who are not experienced web designers often have an unprofessional and inconsistent appearance. This result makes the web site less effective as a marketing tool for an organization.
Some applications provide a set of templates or pre-formatted web pages whose content can be replaced by the user. The resulting web pages are professional in quality, but they look the same for organizations that use the same template. Worse, they do not easily support changing appearance settings. As a result, any company that can afford to hire a professional web designer will hire one instead of having an unprofessional web site or one that looks like a competitor's web site.
For businesses that are trying to establish a professional and unique web site, but lack the staffing or resources to hire a professional web designer, the traditional solutions are not acceptable. They typically do not have the time to learn and understand the web technologies or the money to hire an outside consultant.